AJC Sept. 24, 1969 pg. 1A, 16A

Millican, Cook talk On Brutality, Hippies.

By Alex Coffin

L Everett Millican and Ald. Rodney Cook attempted to explain their positions on police brutality and hippies Friday to a Buckhead audience. They left no doubt that it was firmly behind the police and against the hippies.

Earlier Dr. Horace Tate, held a press conference to denounce unnamed enemies who were trying to "accuse" him out the mayor's race by tying him to a black intimidation campaign

Millican and Cook made low-presentations to the Dykes-Prado Civic Club, and then fielded questions on law and order, police brutality and hippies began.

"Have you changed your mind about the hippies in Piedmont Park?" a questioner asked Cook with reference to last Sunday's police-hippie melee.

Cook said he had not and added that everyone in the Peachtree-14th Street area is not a hippie because many of the youngsters come from Buck head, the northside of Atlanta and DeKalb County.

He said he doesn't approve of harassing those who obey the laws, but that inroads of organized crime through the hard drug traffic poses a real threat. He also mentioned fire bombs and venereal disease as problems in the hippie area.

"If they fly away, great!" Cook said. "But we can't make them fly away. If they disobey the law, we should throw the book at them. But if they don't disobey the law, we shouldn't go in and hit them over the head… we'll make that a safe area?"

Cook said he had seen television films of Sunday's incidents and observed police hitting youngsters with Billy clubs, but also saw a policeman on the ground being stomped.

He said that attacks on citizens or police will not be tolerated and those at fault should have the book thrown at them.

One woman said she knew persons in the Peachtree-14^th Street area who are afraid to go out of their apartments and that "nasty, filthy" hippies are allowed to roam the streets. "If they spit on the police, they ought to have their heads knocked!" she said.

Cook responded that 200 more policemen should be hired and given more pay, better training and put into the neighborhoods on patrol.

Millican said that the "hand-cuffs have been on the wrong people-they've been on the police, not the criminals."

He said that if those present knew what the conditions are in the hippie area, "It'd make you sick " He told of store entrances being blocked, panhandlers begging, boarding houses losing 75 per cent of their renters, apartment hallways being used for restrooms and apartment managers having to go out the back way to avoid picketers.

He said he had talked to a 56-old hippie who hadn’t worked in 12 years, and to 14 hippies who arrived last week from New Orleans because they heard Atlanta was "easy "

He said he had called the police department’s attention to a Vedado Way address where14 arrests were made.

"Sure, there are long haired kids down there that are mad at their families and seeking a thrill, but there also are professionals," Millican said.

"We've got to let folks have freedom, but if they step on another’s freedom, they've lost their rights to freedom," he said.

Both Cook and Millican said they believed the police department to be generally good with only a few "rotten apples" or “bums".

At his press conference, Tate denied any part in the intimidation campaign that has forced the cancellation of two Negro rallies He said the accusations aimed at him are coining from persons who "are afraid they are losing the election.”